


Cooking Lessons

by emilyshee



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bittersweet, Early Relationship, First Time, Fluff, M/M, cecil being a nervous boyfriend, earl and cecil being good friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 03:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3342257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyshee/pseuds/emilyshee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a cooking lesson, Cecil tells Earl the story of the first time he tried to cook for Carlos, back when they first started dating.  Which also turns out to be the story of the first time they went to bed together.  Earl would not have asked if he had known that.  (It's a good story, though.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooking Lessons

Earl Harlan was sitting in Cecil’s kitchen. The previous week he’d bumped into Cecil at the Ralphs, and even though he’d known it wasn’t his business anymore, he couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at Cecil’s cart full of frozen meals.

“The pulled pork recipe you gave us came out really well, once Carlos told me where we keep the slow cooker and how to use it,” Cecil had assured him, looking embarrassed, “But I can’t make that every night. I’d run out of pigs!”

“Is that why you started asking me to come on the show,” Earl had asked, “To learn to cook?”

“And to get to spend more time with my childhood best friend!” Cecil had replied, “But I would like to learn, yes. You know how it is. You go for years and years of takeout and prepared dinners, and then just a few short months with a boyfriend who cooks and you’re suddenly very used to homemade food.”

Earl did not know how that was. Still, he’d done as he always had when Cecil needed help:

“I could teach you, individually, if you want.”

* * *

 

“It actually smells good,” Cecil said, sounding surprised and impressed as he took the chicken saltimbocca out of the oven. Earl had gotten one of the other parents to take his son to the hotdog roast the Scouts were having around the campfire (he knew that he should resume volunteering again, but after his … experience, all of that was still a bit raw), and it was his night off from the restaurant. It was good to spend it with Cecil, rather than alone with his memories – or lack thereof. He pushed the thought away. Cecil did not seem to like being reminded of the uncertain timeline of their past, and while he was sure he would ask again eventually, needing so desperately to seek answers from the only person other than himself who might have them, he was determined not to bring it up tonight.

“I told you the recipe was simpler than it looked,” Earl said. Cecil served to both of them, and Earl watched Cecil’s face as he took the first bite of his handiwork.

“Oh my god,” Cecil said, “Oh. My. God. _I_ made this?”

“You made this,” Earl confirmed, smiling.

“It tastes…really good!” Cecil said. Earl started eating. It did taste really good. Cecil had followed his instructions perfectly, and Earl couldn’t have made better himself.

“Oh, I wish Carlos were here!” Cecil continued, “He would be so impressed!”

“He doesn’t like your cooking?” Earl asked.

“I only tried cooking for him once,” Cecil explained. “A long time ago, back when we’d first started dating. It was … a disaster, perhaps you would say, if indeed ‘disaster’ is a strong enough word. I do not think it is. I do not think the word has been invented that could describe that meal, but if it did, it would fall somewhere between ‘fiasco’ and ‘cataclysm.’”

“Any fatalities?” Earl asked.

“No, not unless you count the potatoes that screamed out their agony dying fruitlessly on the revolving tray of the microwave.”

“Then I can assure you that I have had worse cooking disasters,” Earl said.

“Perhaps,” Cecil allowed, “But it was, nevertheless, the most mortifying experience of my life.”

Earl nodded sympathetically and asked no more questions.

* * *

 

Dinner was over. He had helped Cecil pack the leftovers away in the fridge; deposit the plates in the dishwasher; soak the pans in the sink. But he didn’t want to leave. Not just because he was enjoying spending time with Cecil: there was still an hour before his son would come home, and Earl knew that if he returned to an empty house, alone with his thoughts, he would start to ruminate, again, on all he had lost and all that had been taken from him – the time, the experience, the years and years with no growth, the memory of the birth or adoption of the child that lived mysteriously in his house now – and he couldn’t face the darkness in his mind.

“You wash, I’ll rinse?” Earl suggested, hopefully.

“Nope,” Cecil said, cheerfully but firmly, “You’re the guest. I won’t have you doing chores in my house, especially after you’ve given me a free cooking lesson. You sit down, I insist.”

So he was not expected to leave, even if Cecil wouldn’t let him help with the dishes. That was good, even if it was a little awkward sitting at the kitchen table and talking to Cecil’s back. Earl sighed in relief and began a story about a difficult customer they’d had at the restaurant the previous night while Cecil plunged his hands into the soapy water and fished for the sponge.

A buzzing sound came from Cecil’s end of the table before Earl was halfway through.

“Your phone’s vibrating,” said Earl, “I think you have a text message.”

“Oh, could you check it for me?” Cecil asked, holding up his wet, soapy hands, “It might be from Carlos.”

Earl looked at Cecil. That seemed a little familiar, and Earl wondered if Cecil had forgotten the years of estrangement between them and was talking to the boy he’d known like a brother and not the man whose friendship with him was only casually renewed. But Cecil had always had trouble with personal boundaries, and it was his own boundary he was forgetting, so if that’s what he wanted …

Earl shrugged and swiped his thumb across the screen of Cecil’s phone, frowning a little as he saw that Cecil had never password-protected it.

“The message is from Carlos,” Earl said, “He says, ‘ _What are you up to right now?_ ’ and then there’s a little punctuated smile-y face.”

“Tell him that Earl Harlan came over and is giving me a cooking lesson,” Cecil said over his shoulder as he continued with the dishes.

Earl obediently typed Cecil’s message into the phone.

“ _‘You’re learning to cook? That’s great!_ ’” Earl recited as Carlos’s response came through.

Before Cecil could reply, a new message appeared underneath.

“‘ _But nothing will ever live up to the first time you cooked for me; winking-smiley-face._ ’”Earl frowned. “I thought you said that that was the most mortifying experience of your life?”

“I did.”

“And he’s teasing you about it? I don’t like that,” Earl said, “Cecil, I don’t know if I approve of this guy.”

“He isn’t yours to approve of,” said Cecil, “And anyway, he’s not teasing me about ruining dinner. He’s teasing me about … um … you know what? Maybe you’d better let him know that you’re the one holding the phone.”

“Okay …” Earl typed: _This is Earl, actually. Cecil’s doing dishes and I’m taking dictation. Hi Carlos._

For a moment, the three little dots signifying that the other person is typing appeared and disappeared at the bottom of the screen, as though Carlos was writing, erasing, and then retyping his thoughts. Finally, a long message came through:

“ _‘Hi Earl! It’s so great to finally talk to you! Cecil’s told me so much about you and all the fun stuff you did when you were kids! I hope the lesson’s going well!_ ’ Then there’s an emoji of - an octopus wearing a chef’s hat standing behind a sushi bar, using two of his tentacles to carefully slice Bluefin tuna while the other six distribute just completed unagi rolls to the diners, three of whom are the different colored heads of a dragon, one a penguin, and the final pair a human couple who are ignoring their food as they lean across the space between their red counter stools to kiss. Wow. That is … detailed.”

“Oh, let me see,” said Cecil, turning around with his hands dripping onto the floor. Earl held the phone up to Cecil’s face. “Aww. He makes those himself. Isn’t he clever?”

“That’s pretty impressive,” Earl admitted.

“You keep talking to him while I finish up here,” Cecil said, turning back to the sink, “I’m almost done.”

Earl turned the phone around just in time to see Carlos send another message.

_“(Earl, delete this message before you give the phone back to Cecil. I’m really glad that you’re there. He’s been pretty lonely while I’ve been doing my fieldwork, and I worry about him. I’m glad that he’s spending time with friends again. Thank you.)”_

Another one popped up while he was reading: “ _Tell Cecil I’ll call him tonight. OK, Bye Earl!_ ”

“ _Bye Carlos!_ ” Earl typed back.

But before he could delete the previous message as requested, Cecil had already dropped the last utensil into the dish rack, and was reading the last few messages over Earl’s shoulder while he dried his hands.

“Oh, I didn’t know he worries about me,” Cecil said, “Maybe I should stop calling him when I’m upset. I don’t want to make him _worry._ ”

“No, don’t do that,” Earl said firmly, “You should talk to your boyfriend. That’s what a good relationship is about – calling on each other when you need to. And it’s his job to worry.”

“I guess so,” Cecil said with a sigh, “But you see how sweet he is now? No more disapproval?”

“Tentatively, and with the option of revising my opinion upon actual meeting,” Earl replied, “No more disapproval.”

“Good,” said Cecil, sitting down, “Although, this isn’t high school anymore, we don’t have to approve each other’s dates.”

Earl laughed. He’d almost forgotten that they used to do that. They’d been so judgmental back then! “No, we don’t. Not that we used to listen to each other back then anyway.”

Cecil laughed too, and Earl fought down another impulse to ask him, “When did we used to do that Cecil? When? High school – what years were those?” But he reminded himself again that Cecil did not remember and did not like to think about it. Sometimes he wanted to grab his friend and shake him, shouting in his face, “Who am I? What happened to me? Please try to remember, Cecil, you’re the only other person who might know!” But that was not the sort of behavior he tried to model for his son, or for the Scouts that were once in his care, so to distract himself, he leaned forward with his elbows on Cecil’s table.

“Know what else we used to do back then?” Earl asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No?”

“ _Gossip._ ”

“Oh,” said Cecil. His eyes lit up, and he grinned eagerly, remembering. “What sort of gossip did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking you could tell me what Carlos _was_ teasing you about that made you suddenly so intent on letting him know you weren’t the only one reading his texts,” Earl said, injecting hope and barely bridled curiosity into his voice. Earl was not actually sure that he wanted to hear an account of whatever part of Cecil’s happy, committed relationship made him smile and blush like that – not when all of Earl’s personal relationships, even that with his own child, left him feeling lost. But that _was_ what he and Cecil used to do together: sit side-by-side in the cafeteria or in their shared tent and talk about boys (or, in Earl’s case, boys and girls). So if he was going to be friends with Cecil again, he supposed he’d better start forming that particular callus as soon as possible.

Cecil was rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve never told this story to anyone before,” he admitted, giving Earl a side-long look like he was dying to finally talk about it, “Carlos asked me not to mention it on the radio.”

“But you’re not on the radio,” Earl pointed out, “Friends totally don’t count. Now, come on. Spill.”

Cecil made a show of wavering reluctance, but he did not look at all uncertain as he suddenly gave in and leaned forward.

* * *

 

“So, this was back pretty early in my relationship with Carlos,” Cecil began, “We’d been dating for about three weeks then, and things were going pretty well. You know that sweet awkwardness of a new relationship, when you’re still getting to know each other, all those tentative first kisses and touches that, no matter how heartfelt, are always a little bit experimental – will I like this, how much will I like this, will he like this – and how it can send even the most mature adult back to an emotional teenagerhood.”

Earl did not know. But he nodded as if he did.

“It was going pretty well so far,” Cecil continued, practically glowing in the happiness of his memories, “We were starting to get comfortable with each other, learn our likes and dislikes; things were … progressing … and I thought, maybe it was time to move our relationship to the next level. So I invited him over for dinner. And I know I can’t cook, but I thought it would be easier to move things where I wanted them to go if the bedroom was like, right there, so I figured I’d make something nice and simple, light some candles, put on a bit of music …”

“Sweep him off his feet.”

“That was the plan, yeah.” Cecil’s mouth turned down wryly as he remembered what had actually happened.

“What did you try to cook for him?” Earl asked.

“Nothing anywhere near as complicated as what we made today! It was just steak and potatoes with frozen broccoli.” Cecil still didn’t understand how it had gone so horribly awry. He looked at Earl. “Why are you shaking your head, that’s simple, right? No sauce, very little seasoning, nothing to get wrong!”

“Steak _is_ simple, but it’s also very easy to get wrong,” Earl explained, “Just a little too much salt or pepper, just a few too many minutes in the oven – it’s very finicky. Even experienced cooks occasionally ruin a good steak.”

"Really?"

Earl nodded.

“Well, I guess that makes me feel a bit better,” Cecil continued, “Because things began going wrong right away. I started with the baked potatoes. I was just going to microwave them, which even I should have been able to handle, I’ve done that before. But I guess I was nervous, because I forgot to stab each one through the heart before I put them in, so of course they began fighting for dominance in the microwave. I knew I should have purchased them declawed but the book said they taste better cooked intact - Anyway, I didn’t notice what was going on right away, because I was busy putting the broccoli on to boil and searing the steak on both sides like the recipe said. I actually had the steak in the oven before I thought to check on the potatoes, and by then a victor had emerged and increased its strength by consuming the bodies of the fallen, and I had to defeat it in mortal combat. Which - you know what that can be like.”

Earl actually did know this time.  He nodded again.

“And the kitchen I used to have in the old apartment was really cramped, not nearly big enough for a full-pitched battle for your life against sentient vegetation.” Cecil shuddered as he remembered. What a nightmare! “By the time I managed to kill it, I’d knocked over half the things on my counter, the room was covered in purple potato ichor, and what was left of the body of my foe wasn’t anywhere near edible. And the worst part was that I had decided to dress for the date _before_ I started cooking so that I wouldn’t have to worry about giving myself enough time later, so of course I ruined my nice clothes! I had to go change. I mean, my shirt was ripped in three places and I was bleeding from a shallow cut across my chest. I couldn’t let Carlos see me like that!”

“Yeah, I bet he would have _hated_ that,” Earl muttered, picturing Cecil all clothes-torn and battle scarred.

Cecil gave him a confused look, and Earl worried for a minute that this was going to be one of the rare times when Cecil actually managed to pick up on sarcasm. But Cecil, unable to interpret whatever it was that he’d heard in Earl’s voice, just shook his head and continued.

“It would have been humiliating. But remember, I was hoping that this was going to be a very significant date, so of course I’d put a lot of time and thought into deciding what I was going to wear. So it wasn’t exactly _easy_ to just throw on another outfit. I stood there waffling in front of my closet for ages. There may have been crying.” Cecil was not sure on that point. Perhaps the tears came later. “Then I started pulling things out and trying them on and angrily tossing them aside again. It was awful. By the time I finally decided that it _was_ more romantic than tacky to put on the same purple tunic and furry pants I’d worn for our first date, I had nearly the entire contents of my closet strewn across my bedroom floor. And I couldn’t just leave them there, because I had hopes for that room later, if you know what I mean.”

“Could you hear the kitchen timer from your bedroom?” Earl asked, as he started to realize where this story was going.

“Nope,” said Cecil, “Not unless I really listened for it, and I was very preoccupied with making myself look presentable. That’s not the easiest thing to do when you don’t own a mirror.”

“How long did you leave the steak in the oven?”

“I’m not really sure. I had put it in a little earlier than I’d needed to because I was nervous about being ready on time. So I’d given myself a bit more than the ten minute buffer I had planned on having in case things went wrong. And I hadn’t forgotten to allow time for the steak to sit after taking it out. It stayed in for all that time. It was probably at least thirty minutes. Maybe even forty."

“Oh my god,” said Earl, “At 450 degrees?”

Cecil nodded. “I had just finished putting the last leather poncho back on its hanger when the smoke alarm went off.”

Earl laughed, shaking his head in sympathetic horror. “Oh, Cecil.”

“The steaks had congealed into two hard, blackened lumps. I tried to cut through one with a steak knife to see how bad they really were inside, and I didn’t have the best knives back then - the good set is Carlos’s – and they wouldn’t even penetrate it. It was just – solid.”

“I can imagine.”

“So I managed to pry the steaks off the skillet and they joined what was left of the potatoes in the garbage. Then I put the charred skillet in the sink and started to soak it, but the water splashed back up on me and soaked my shirt. Then I went to check on the broccoli, wondering if there was any way to turn that into an entrée, which was when I discovered that I had bought the wrong kind of frozen broccoli.”

“Arsenic-laced?” Earl asked, wincing.

“No,” Cecil replied, making a mental note to ask Earl sometime about his own previously referenced cooking disasters, “Pre-cooked. I never should have boiled it, it only needed to be reheated. Now it was just broccoli mush. I mean, what do you even do with that?

“Mix it with fresh and make broccoli cheese soup,” Earl suggested.

Cecil pointed at himself. “Not a chef, remember? I couldn’t do that on the fly, even if I had the rest of those ingredients.”

“It would have taken too long anyway, I was just thinking out loud,” Earl explained, “So what did you do with it?”

“Threw it out, along with all my other inedible food. And I’m looking around at my mess of a kitchen when I see the time and realize that Carlos should be here any second now and I have absolutely nothing to offer him. Which is when I ran my hand through my hair in thought and it came away purple. Apparently I’d neglected to clean the ichor out of it after the earlier potato fight.”

“Yeah, that does sound like a disaster,” Earl agreed.

“But believe it or not, at this point I _still_ thought the date might be salvageable. I mean, it’s the time I told him to be there, sure, but Carlos has a habit of getting distracted by science and he’s often a little late. I figured he was probably just about to head out the door. I thought that I could still call him, tell him about burning dinner like it was a funny story and not something I was deeply embarrassed about, and ask him wait another hour before coming over. Then I could leave the kitchen to be cleaned up tomorrow, order delivery, change again while waiting for it, put the food in serving dishes when it got here so that it would still look fancy-” which was probably what he should have done to begin with, if only he hadn’t had the stubborn notion that only cooking the food himself would be suitably romantic for the occasion, “– and it might still be OK. So I actually have the phone _in my hand_ to call him and set this plan in motion when the doorbell rings. Because he picked _now_ to finally be on time.”

“Of course he did,” said Earl, who knew how these things worked.

“It got even worse when I opened the door,” Cecil said. He considered how to explain this, given that, to his knowledge, Earl had never actually met his boyfriend. “OK, you’ve _seen_ Carlos, right? Around town, before you disappeared for a bit?” Earl nodded. “So you know how, under normal circumstances, he’s a beautiful creature of such unbridled perfection that you can barely believe he’s human?”

“He is one good-looking guy,” Earl agreed. Actually, his first thought on seeing the scientist - after he’d gotten over pointing his finger and shouting “Interloper!” – had been to notice, in a vague and impersonal way, how attractive he was. His second thought had been to wonder if Cecil Palmer had somehow conjured him into existence, because everything about him from his square-jaw to his perfect hair to that bizarrely specific scientist fetish Cecil had always had, matched the description of the imaginary perfect guy that Cecil used to dream about in high school. But then time had passed, and Carlos had shown no interest in Cecil nor any sign of being anything other than his own complete person and Earl had accepted that Carlos looking like Cecil Palmer’s adolescent fantasies made flesh was just a coincidence – or possibly fate.

“Well, if ‘good-looking guy’ is how you want to put it, then yeah, OK. But the point is that that night he looked even more devastatingly gorgeous than usual.” Cecil leaned forward on the table. “You know how sometimes people can just look _so_ put-together that all you can think about is rumpling them?”

“Yes, I do,” Earl replied, with such feeling that Cecil wondered what he was remembering.

“Well, that was Carlos. He hadn’t come straight from the lab, he’d gone home to shave and freshen up. His face looked so smooth and touchable, and his hair was still damp from him combing through it, and he was wearing – You see, most of the time, even on our dates, he just wears a t-shirt or maybe a comfortable flannel under his lab coat – not that I’m complaining about that, because the casual look can be quite nice and it fits his personality and, well, to be a bit crass, he fills out a t-shirt very well – but that night he was wearing his sharpest lab coat, and underneath it he had on a button down shirt and a suit vest! A _fitted_ suit vest. You know how they just hug your waist so - And he’s holding a bottle of my favorite wine. Which I hadn’t told him about. I found out later that he had explained about the dinner date to Lost Moon Fine Wines and Spirits owner Bob Mejia, and asked what my preferences were as a customer.”

“Smooth,” Earl commented.

“And as I’m standing there, underneath the faint odor of smoke still emanating from the kitchen I can smell that he’s not wearing his usual date-night aftershave. This is some fancy cologne that I’d never smelled on him before.”

“Sounds like you and he had pretty similar ideas about where this particular date was going,” Earl said, “So, what did you say when you opened the door?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even ‘hi.’ I just stood there in devastated silence feeling awful about the contradiction between him, vision of perfection, and the mess I’d made of the dinner, the apartment, and myself. I didn’t even move out of the way to let him in.”

“What did he do?”

“He looked me over once, sniffed the air, and said, ‘Oh, you burned dinner too? I did that myself last night.’"

“See, it’s not so embarrassing-” Earl began.

“Oh no, that was a total lie,” Cecil cut him off, “He'd gone to Big Rico's with the other scientists the night before; he'd forgotten that I knew about that. I guess he was trying to make me feel better, but the thought that the only way he could think of to comfort me was to lie to me made it even worse.”

“Yeah, I could see that. It was nice of him, though.”

"Then he asked me how bad it was. ‘Totally ruined,’ I said. And he said, ‘Should we order takeout then?’ But at that point I just wanted him to leave as quickly as possible so I could start mourning the dashing of all my hopes in private. So I said, ‘No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, I think we should just-’ But before I could say, ‘reschedule,’ he interrupted me. ‘Yeah, you’re right, I’m sure we can find something else to cook here.’ Then he sort of shoved the bottle into my arms and pushed past me into the apartment. I was still stammering something in the doorway when he got into the kitchen and started rummaging through the fridge. Without permission.”

Cecil looked at him, “I mean, that was a bit – overly familiar, right? Just barging into my kitchen – that, that’s _rude_ , right?  That's not a thing that new boyfriends do?"

Earl smiled, remembering how Cecil used to always ask him for help reading social cues. “Was that teasing mean or friendly? Is he asking me out on a date or as friends? What did he _mean_ by that?” Cecil used to be very dependent on Earl for that kind of thing. Maybe that’s why he never noticed…

“Yeah, you’re right, that was totally rude.”

“I thought so! Which is strange, because that’s _so_ not like him. I mean, other than when he lets science distract him into thoughtlessness, Carlos is usually very polite.”

“Maybe he thought he could cheer you up if he pretended like nothing was wrong and made sure you could still have dinner together,” Earl suggested.

“Hm. Given what happened later, that makes a lot of sense. But in the moment, I was even more humiliated, because, since I don’t cook, almost the only thing I had in my fridge aside from beverages and condiments and store-bought dip was a new carton of eggs, and I was afraid that he would think that I bought it in anticipation of needing to give him breakfast the next morning. I mean, I _had_ just bought it in the hopes of needing to give him breakfast the next morning, but I didn’t want him to know that. It seemed presumptuous.

“But by the time I got there he’d taken out the eggs and butter and milk and some nice sharp cheese that I had and said, ‘How do you feel about omelets?’ And I’m standing there, still holding the wine he gave me, and I still wanted him to leave, but I didn’t want to _kick him out_ , so I just said, ‘Omelets are … fine.’ And he smiled and said, ‘Good.’ Then he looked around thoughtfully. ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘Maybe I should cook while you set the table, since I don’t know my way around your cabinets yet. Can you hand me a frying pan and a spatula?’ And I think I would have objected, but he said, ‘yet,’ like he expected to know his way around my kitchen sometime in the future, which I took to mean that he foresaw our relationship continuing and perhaps even getting serious. But that might have been just me reading too much into things again.”

“No, I’d say that was a pretty safe interpretation, especially considering where you are now,” Earl said, gesturing around at Carlos and Cecil’s shared home.

“Yeah. So, anyway, I was too over the moon about that to protest, so I just did what he said. Then I ducked away to clean the gunk out of my hair as best I could and change into the only other shirt I had that went with my furry pants since the tunic was still wet, and he’d finished cooking by the time I came back.

“Which was hard to take, actually. That I’d spent hours planning and prepping what should have been a very simple meal and managed to spoil every piece of it, whereas he’d whipped up a suitable and delicious replacement in about ten minutes. Which was on top of the deeper humiliation of me inviting him over for dinner and him having to cook for me in my kitchen.”

“Yeah, I can see where that would be pretty embarrassing,” Earl said.

“But dinner was nice. The omelets were very good actually. I still lit the candles, he was still perfect and gorgeous. Actually, he spent dinner telling me stories about every lab disaster he’d ever been involved in, and I don't think those were more lies. He’s had some pretty ridiculous scientific accidents! And I laughed until I felt better. He’s very good at making me feel better.”

Earl nodded. That was nice. His opinion of the scientist as a boyfriend was steadily going up over the course of this story, and he was glad that Cecil was happy with someone who was starting to seem really good for him.

“I had still given up on my initial plans for the evening, but by the end of dinner I was cheered up enough to suggest watching a movie. I thought maybe we could have a nice, quiet time snuggling on the couch and then I could plan another romantic first-time date and let this one fade into a cute, funny story. So I asked him to pick out a DVD while I cleared the table, and we watched – you know that surrealist horror film where you’re forced to confront the howling, unresponsive void that surrounds our existence and the simultaneous pain and fruitlessness of our struggle against it, confusingly juxtaposed with cute baby animals falling down?”

“March of the Penguins?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. I didn’t even know he was interested in avant garde experimental cinema. Although maybe he wasn’t as interested in it as he thought he would be, because I don’t think either of us was paying attention. I was thinking about how perfect and gorgeous he was, and how epically I’d screwed up what could have been our most memorable date so far, and yet how nice it was, despite all of that, to be sitting there next to him. I’m not sure what he was thinking about though, because when I asked him, all he would say is that I wasn’t really watching the movie either. Then he accused me of staring at his hair! Which I denied, even though I was totally doing that - but I mean, you’ve seen his hair, right?”

“I have seen his hair,” Earl said, remembering both the few glimpses he’d caught of the scientist back when they were both in town at the same time, and the numerous pictures of him that adorned Cecil’s facebook and the walls of his studio. “No one could blame you at all.”

“Then he said that I always seem to be staring at his hair, and he wanted to know why I never touch it.”

Earl had a sudden suspicion about where the story was headed now.

“I said that I would never dare to touch his hair, and he pointed out that, as we were dating, it would not be at all inappropriate for me to touch his hair and that he ran his fingers through my hair all the time.”

“Did he?”

“Well, not _all_ the time. Sometimes, when we kissed, or right before we were going to. It was nice.” Cecil smiled. “Then he gave me a worried look and asked, ‘Do you want me to stop touching your hair?’ And he looked so concerned, like he thought he’d just discovered some personal or cultural taboo that he’d been inadvertently transgressing for the entirety of our relationship. So I quickly reassured him that no, I liked it when he touched my hair, liked feeling his fingers sliding through it and his palm warm against my scalp. Then he said, ‘Well then?’ and inclined his head towards me …”

“And you’d really never touched his hair before?” Earl couldn’t help asking.

“How could I bring myself to violate the divine transcendence of his stunning coif with my hand of mere flesh and bone, at the risk of corrupting its perfection?”

Earl was shaking his head. “Now, if _I_ were dating someone with hair like that,” Earl said, because he had never been personally attracted to Carlos, but come on, you would have to dead not to notice The Hair, “Almost the first thing I would do is get my hands in it and see how I could muss it up.”

“I could barely bring myself to touch it then, even with his express invitation. I just reached out, trembling, and ran the very tips of my fingers over the edge of it as lightly and reverently as I could. Then he laughed at me and said, ‘Cecil!’ and he grabbed me by the wrist and buried my hand in it and … Oh, Earl, it was so soft,” Cecil intoned dreamily, “Soft and thick, and not at all sticky. He doesn’t put any product in it, it just _falls_ like that.”

Cecil’s smile fell. “Then I ruined that too. I got over-excited and pulled it.”

“Some people like getting their hair pulled, in … um … romantic situations,” Earl commented.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve dated guys like that before. Carlos isn’t into it though. I don’t think he’d _mind_ if I liked to, but he doesn’t get excited if I pull on it accidentally,” Cecil explained, “That first time, though, he was too startled to react, and I was just mortified. I pulled away immediately and I wouldn’t stop apologizing no matter how many times he said it was OK. Then he started trying to convince me that I hadn’t pulled his hair at all, like I wasn’t right there and it hadn’t just happened.”

“He denied your experience of reality?” Earl asked, frowning sharply.

“No, more like he argued semantics with me. He said what I had done was less ‘hair pulling,’ and more ‘grabbing him by the hair and kissing him,’ which he didn’t mind at all.”

“Was there any truth to that?” asked Earl, who was getting surprisingly interested in the story despite the subject matter, “Because that’s a different situation entirely.”

“I did kiss him,” Cecil admitted, “Like I said, I was over-excited. But it had to be the world’s worst kiss, it was sloppy and awkward and – ugh, just terrible. And I didn’t do anything as euphemistically gentle as ‘grab’ him by the hair; I yanked on it pretty good.”

“I still would have enjoyed it,” Earl said thoughtfully, “I mean, if it was someone I was interested in.”

“I would have argued the matter further,” Cecil said, “But then I got distracted because he, um, demonstrated the difference for me.”

“Meaning?”

“He reached back behind my head and took some of my hair in his hand, and he said, ‘This is hair-pulling,’ and he gave it a sharp tug, but lightly, like he was being careful not to actually hurt me. Then he said, ‘What you did was more like this,’ and he grabbed it very gently and pulled me into this deep, passionate kiss in a motion that was much, _much_ smoother than anything I had done. But I didn’t care, because that was a pretty seductive thing in and of itself, but the apparent implication that what I had done a moment ago had possibly made _him_ feel even a fraction of what I was feeling – well, it was one of the hottest things that had ever happened to me.” Cecil remembered being so overwhelmed that he’d fallen back over the arm of the couch, Carlos following him so that they were practically lying on top of each other.

“So we ended up making out like teenagers.”

Except that when he was a teenager he’d never made out with anyone who knew how to move his hands like that, keeping them gentlemanly above Cecil’s clothes and his belt but roaming them over his torso in a way that eloquently communicated interest in getting beneath both of them as soon as he had permission, or who could shift his hips in that plausibly accidental but almost definitely purposeful way that let Cecil just feel –

“And I could tell that he was … interested in going further,” Cecil said, “And I froze, completely, like an idiot. He pulled away immediately, and I could see the apology blossoming in his eyes, so that was my cue, right? To say something to reassure him that we weren’t moving too fast. Something tender and heartfelt, or witty and charming, or maybe even _forward_ and daring. But I didn’t say anything like that.” Cecil cringed. “No what came out of my stupid mouth was, ‘So, um, I have a bedroom…?’”

Cecil’s voice could make anything sound suggestive, but when he repeated the words to Earl, they did not sound sexy or alluring. He made them sound awkward and dumb, like he was announcing that gravity was functioning today, or something even more obvious. It was so typically Cecil that Earl had to laugh, and he regretted it immediately.

“I’m sorry, Cecil, I didn’t mean … that’s not so bad.”

“No, it was bad,” Cecil insisted, “It was even worse than ‘Neat!’”

He sighed deeply.

“Not that it didn’t work, but … still, so embarrassing!”

Then Cecil hesitated, unsure as to how much detail he wanted to go into now that he’d reached the most interesting part of the story. And not sure that he wanted to _hear_ any details, Earl took advantage of Cecil’s hesitation to ask,

“How late did he stay the next morning?”

Cecil’s entire face broke into a smile. “Oh, he left pretty early,” he said, “He had science to do. But when I walked him to the door, he kept making it a few steps away and then turning around to come back and kiss me goodbye one more time, like he didn’t want to leave.”

Earl punched Cecil’s arm in a congratulatory manner.

Cecil grinned.

“That was a nice story, Cecil,” Earl said, and he was surprised to find that it was true. It was not nearly as painful as he had expected to hear Cecil talk about his hot boyfriend. It had felt, in fact, almost exactly like the gossiping they used to do before things had gotten complicated between them. Maybe Earl should stop focusing on the things he wanted that Cecil could not give him, and start remembering how much he had enjoyed what they used to have - what he could get back.

“Although I don’t see how that constitutes the ‘Most Mortifying Experience of Your Entire Life,’” Earl continued, making air quotes with his fingers. “I can think of at least a dozen _way_ more embarrassing things that have happened to you, without even trying. _Way_ more. Like, leaps and bounds more embarrassing-”

“Yes _,_ Earl, _thank you,”_ Cecil cut him off, “I haven’t lost _all_ memories of middle school.”

Earl bit his lip to keep the question, “ _Do you remember what year it was?”_ from bubbling up. Cecil knew that he wanted to know, and if he remembered, he would tell him.

“Perhaps it wasn’t that it was such a humiliating evening in and of itself, it’s just-” Cecil paused, trying to put into words why thinking about that burnt dinner made him feel so badly in spite of what happened after. “It’s just that, I’d been _so_ in love with him, for _so_ long. And he’d initiated _everything_ , from first phone call to first date to first kiss. Mostly because I’d been hanging back so I wouldn’t pressure him, but I was starting to feel like I didn’t have to hang back anymore, and this was going to be our first time, and I just – I wanted so badly to be _smooth_ , you know?”

Cecil looked at Earl. “I am in many ways a great catch,” he continued primly, putting his hand on his chest, “But I’ve never been _smooth.”_

Earl could not argue with that. Cecil was many things, including more adorable than he’d ever believe, but no: outside of his radio booth, Cecil had never been smooth. But there was only one thing Earl had ever done whenever Cecil needed help.

"Would it be 'smooth,'" Earl asked, "If, when he comes back, you cook for him the same meal you tried to make then, but get it right this time?"

Cecil's eyes brightened.  " _Yes!_ " he said eagerly, "Oh, but I couldn't do that.  You said steak is hard, right?"

"Not hard,” Earl corrected, “Just finicky. But now you have an _extremely_ talented chef giving you lessons. If we practice it enough, making it will become automatic, and by the time Carlos comes home you’ll be able to handle it easily no matter how nervous you are.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. We’ll practice it next time, OK? But in the meantime,"  Earl reached into his pocket and handed Cecil a folded piece of paper, "Here’s your homework."

"I have cooking homework?"

"That's a recipe for chicken parmigiana,” Earl explained, “It's basically the same thing we did today, but with canned tomato sauce and mozzarella instead of wine, prosciutto, and provolone.  I want you to try it before our next lesson."

“All right,” Cecil said, “I’ll give it a try.”

"Good. I'll email you later about setting up a time for our next lesson."

Earl stood up and Cecil walked him to the door. He waved goodbye as he started to his car, deciding spontaneously to stop by White Sands on his way home and pick up a quart of peach-ginger. When his son got home, Earl thought, he would scoop them both ice cream and ask about the Scout meeting, and maybe this time the boy would actually talk to him and he could finally learn the kid’s name. He would like that.

Or maybe not. Maybe, they would just eat their ice cream together in their usual total silence before Earl would ruffle the kid’s hair, remind him to brush his teeth, and send him to bed. That would be nice too.

* * *

 

Cecil watched Earl drive away, feeling a little sadder than before, despite how nice it had been to cook with and talk to Earl. Part of that feeling, he thought, came from guilt. Cecil’s own needs were so simple: a little advice on how to feed himself; a listening ear, to hear about his absent boyfriend. But the things Earl needed – a deeper connection with the son he did not know; concrete answers about his lack of aging and the huge gaps in his memory; and perhaps something else that Cecil was not even aware of – these were huge, vast things that Cecil could not help him with, no matter how much he might wish to. It was not Cecil’s fault, but the unevenness of their friendship still made him feel a little guilty.

The rest of the sadness came from the fact that now, after reliving in memory their wonderful (if embarrassing) first time together, he missed Carlos more than ever.

Well, he might not be able to do anything about Earl, but he could do something about the rest of it. " _Earl just left_ ," he texted Carlos, and the phone started to ring almost immediately.

“Hi! How did the lesson go?” Carlos said when he answered.

“It was good,” Cecil replied, “Dinner came out well, and Earl and I got a chance to talk afterwards.”

“What did you guys talk about?”

“Oh, just … stuuufff. You know.”

“OK,” said Carlos, and Cecil could hear the smile in his voice, “But you said dinner went well. What did you make?”

“Actually, I have leftovers,” Cecil said, “I could show you, if you feel like manifesting.”

Cecil heard the beeping sound that let him know that Carlos had hung up without answering, and he was already standing behind him when Cecil turned around.

“Hi,” Carlos said, smiling.

And Cecil felt, like always, the rush of impulse to _hug him_ that had sent him barreling through the scientist several times during the first few weeks after Carlos had learned to manifest. But he conquered it instinctively now, so there wasn’t even a false start before he smiled back.

“Hi yourself.” Cecil wondered if, when they were finally together again, this habit he’d developed of immediately stifling any impulse to touch his boyfriend would temporarily send them back to the early-relationship physical awkwardness he’d described to Earl, as he would have to remind himself that touching was now possible just like back then (after so long with an unrequited crush) he’d had to remind himself, or have Carlos remind him, that touching was now allowed. It would be a small price to pay.

“Come see what I made,” Cecil said, leading the way.

Carlos inhaled deeply as they entered the kitchen, where the scent of wine and garlic lingered in the air.

“Cecil, I can smell your food!” he cried, “I’ve never noticed smelling anything while manifested before. This opens up all sorts of scientific possibilities about molecular transference between the worlds and the nature of these manifestations.”

As he spoke, Carlos subtly brushed his hand against the edge of the table as though testing something, then returned it to his side when, like always, it went right through.

“I’ll have to set up some experiments to-”

Carlos stopped talking abruptly and looked at his boyfriend.

“I mean, it smells really good, Cecil.”

Cecil grinned took the leftovers out of the fridge so Carlos could see them.

“It was actually very easy, and it came out better than I expected.” He sighed. “I wish you could have some.”

“Cecil, this looks and smells amazing, but it would not be my first priority if I could interact physically with objects on this plane.” He looked at Cecil out of the corners of his eyes and grinned wickedly.

“Have you made any progress with finding a way for me to visit?” Cecil asked, and Carlos’s face fell, immediately.

“Not yet,” Carlos said, “I was working on it today, but – but I’m sure I’ll find something soon.”

He forced himself to smile at Cecil. “After all, I have science. I’m a scientist.”

But he said it in his normal voice, not the suggestive, “ _Look at how scientific I am. Are you thinking about me doing science? You_ like _it when I’m scientific, don’t you?_ ” voice that he used when he wanted to start something. A lot had changed between them since that first night together, Cecil reflected wryly, but apparently he had only gotten better at ruining the mood.

“Why don’t we go sit down and you can tell me all about your cooking lesson?” Carlos asked, drifting insubstantially towards the living room. Carlos could not sit down, really, in that state – but after long practice, he had developed a method of hovering in a seated position over the sofa cushion that _looked_ almost like sitting and that put him at eye level with Cecil. Cecil returned his leftovers to the fridge and followed him.

“Earl gave me homework!” Cecil bemoaned in an exaggerated whine, because he knew that it would make Carlos laugh, which it did.

“I want to hear about everything, start to finish,” said Carlos.

Cecil settled onto the couch next to where Carlos appeared to be and began to describe his day, and if he didn’t look too closely at the place where Carlos’s weight should have been making an imprint in the sofa cushion, or accidentally shift close enough that their limbs should have been brushing against each other, then it was almost like really sitting next to him!

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my drafts for a little while, but I rewrote it after last episode to make Earl a little sadder. Hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think!


End file.
